


mentors and Murphy's law

by pensee



Category: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel - James Luceno, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Age Difference, Bigger age difference than canon, Borrows from Catalyst but not canon to Catalyst, Coming of Age, Crushes on boys, Imperial Galen Erso, Imperial Orson Krennic, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Oral Sex, Surprise Angst, a bit of pining, implied galen/lyra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22749778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensee/pseuds/pensee
Summary: “What’re you looking at?” he blurts out, Galen not so much as batting an eye when he approaches, plopping himself down on the long bench that parallels the railing, gingerly inching closer before he thinks Galen will notice.“I’m looking for the stars,” Galen says, so soft the sound is nearly lost beneath the relentless din of the city. “Someone I met off-world tells me they’re always much easier to see, the further you are from the light.”Orson shivers, for some reason. Galen’s statement is silly, something you’d say to a child to explain the mysterious ways of the universe to them, but it doesn’t sound like his friend is mocking him, and Orson doesn’t know exactly what to do with that.-Orson Krennic grows up, joins the Imperial military, and finds himself falling in love with an old friend.
Relationships: Galen Erso/Lyra Erso, Galen Erso/Orson Krennic
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	mentors and Murphy's law

**Author's Note:**

> Well, Rogue One continues to slaughter me emotionally. Enjoy the fruits of my pain.

Orson is seven years old the day his very small world changes irrevocably.

Implodes in on itself until gravity cannot compress the matter which his universe contains any smaller, until a planet forms at its center, creating a sun. The implosion then becomes an expansion of immeasurable proportions, each massive object made of stone and ice circling around a central point, orbits ceaseless and predictable, though less so is everything that happens next.

“I have certain responsibilities, son, and you’re here instead of off at a music lesson or with your tutor because these responsibilities will become yours one day, and I want you to know how to behave properly under these circumstances,” his father tells him, in full military regalia, very much a representative of the Galactic Republic.

Even at home, he talks as if he is giving a speech to a very small audience—his mother, the staff, and occasionally, his parents’ friends—and Orson doesn’t dare giggle at the large, grandiose words his father uses for fear of being made to attend even more of these social events that are nothing as interesting as the adventure holos he squirrels away on his datapad whenever he thinks his parents won’t see.

“Okay, Papa,” he says, dutiful, and stands up straighter when someone beeps the intercom at the door.

When their guest steps through the threshold, Orson nearly gasps at how young his face is (of course, the guest is older than Orson is, which makes him automatically _ancient_ , but perhaps not as ancient as Mummy and Papa) and how impassive it remains towards his father’s attempts at belittling him.

_This is Dr. Galen Erso of the Futures Programme, you know the one, Orson. Be very polite to him; his charitable research fellowship is buying a million credits worth of our durasteel!_

“How goes the interplanetary networking, Galen?” his father asks, a glass of neon green liquor in his hand, a matching one in mother’s, despite her fiercely puckered lips at the taste. There is a glass filled with carbonated water in Dr. Erso’s gloved grip.

“I’m surprised the university let you continue with this hydroelectric nonsense. The water-worshiping savages will just dismantle everything and claim sacrilege the moment you leave for good; as if they could ever appreciate the good work you’re doing for them.”

“I’m not doing anything _for_ them,” Dr. Erso says evenly, smile almost sad, as if he has explained this to many different people before. “We’re working as a team, Commander Krennic. You were in combat; surely you remember the feeling.”

Father’s face turns a funny shade of red, and mother grasps tightly at his arm till the fabric of his uniform wrinkles, unseemly.

“Er, yes,” father coughs, shoving Orson forward, suddenly, sloshing his blue milk all over the front of his shirt. Orson, although not very experienced in politics or war, recognizes that he is being used as a shield and as a distraction. “Orson, why don’t you clean yourself up and go help Llyenna with setting the table.”

Usually uninhibited by petty considerations like shame, Orson nonetheless feels his cheeks heat when Dr. Erso’s eyes flicker to him, pitying for a moment before he turns back to father, smiling tightly.

This is a chore for everyone involved, but Orson wonders what’s wrong with him, that he rushes through each place setting, Llyenna scolding him for messing up the utensils for every plate except their guest’s.

By the time Krennic’s graduated his primary lessons, he’s learned that it’s acceptable to call Dr. Erso by his first name instead of his title.

Despite his charitable work on Aquina Five falling through, he’s remained a rather constant fixture at father’s parties—always in honor of celebrating some grand new purchase or far-off military victory—returning to Coruscant every half-year to negotiate supply logistics and lobby for more charitable grants from the reliably bleeding hearts that still manage to linger on the Senate floor, regardless of the coup which had quickly and mercilessly turned everything Imperial.

Like the flick of a switch, a new flag flew over the galaxy, and business had returned to normal, at least here in the Core. 

“Hi, Galen,” he greets shyly, easily certain of himself among his imbecilic peers, yet tongue-tied before this engineering prodigy father still manages to treat as a brainless stroke of luck due to his age and supposed lack of pedigree.

“Nice to see you again,” his father smirks. “You must be a glutton for punishment. Didn’t you hear the Senate recently cut funding to the Yuncan Aide Projects? Your little charitable services can’t be far off the chopping block, Galen.”

The rest of the night continues much like that, his parents prattling, Galen parrying.

“Kriff, that sounds like a nightmare,” Prana Reese, one of his more tolerable schoolmates, observes. “Off-worlding to places without running water or holos or even flimsiplast books to entertain yourself? All to help people who don’t want your help anyway.”

Her mother heads a Communications in Commerce publication, and Orson then realizes he’s never heard her say anything that hasn’t been published as gospel by the Empire first.

Mrs. Reese and his parents and a horde of others just like them pretend at intellectualism and drink themselves into a dumb stupor while Galen watches them with his soda water, half-involved in a discussion with a Monta holo-reporter on one of the more comfortable couches in their suite.

Bored of chatting with Prana, Orson gathers all the courage he has and decides to find Galen, hoping for—well, hoping for something, but the couch where he had been sitting is empty, the reporter vanished into the small dinner crowd waiting around the buffet tables.

The rest of the apartment is blocked off by a set of currently locked double doors, so Orson tries the balcony, which is deserted save a lone figure, the noise from passing cruisers and thundering rapport from far off power plants enough of a deterrent to keep them alone.

Galen doesn’t seem disturbed by the noise, silently peering up beyond the towering buildings that surround them, seeking something above.

“What’re you looking at?” he blurts out, Galen not so much as batting an eye when he approaches, plopping himself down on the long bench that parallels the railing, gingerly inching closer before he thinks Galen will notice.

“I’m looking for the stars,” Galen says, so soft the sound is nearly lost beneath the relentless din of the city. “Someone I met off-world tells me they’re always much easier to see, the further you are from the light.”

Orson shivers, for some reason. Galen’s statement is silly, something you’d say to a child to explain the mysterious ways of the universe to them, but it doesn’t sound like his friend is mocking him, and Orson doesn’t know exactly what to do with that.

He’s never been afraid of the dark, but his whole short life, he’s been surrounded by blinking bulbs and flashing signs, projections and holos and interactive computers that sound nothing like where Galen’s from or where he’s been.

_Or where he’s going; far, far away from you_ , a small voice says, and he hates that it sounds like mother, who has no place in this moment.

“Makes sense,” he says lamely, forgetting everything he meant to say about what he’d learned about particle theory and interstellar travel in school.

Galen moves, just then, expression tender.

It scares Orson to think he’s always like this, when he’s not fending off underhanded threats from people like father, terrifying that such kindness still exists in a galaxy intent on quietly snuffing it out.

Orson gulps when he notices how close their hands are.

Galen’s fingers are thick, his fingers visibly callused and cracked from his work. His hand must be as big as Papa’s, or bigger, Orson thinks nonsensically.

Galen is the first to act, clasping Orson’s hand beneath his own, and Orson feels so small in comparison, but Galen’s palm is the one that’s sweating. Orson gulps, feeling the same fluttery feeling he felt the day that Yannick Ash tried to kiss him and got pushed away instead.

_I would never push_ you _away_ , he thinks to himself, childishly touching the tips of his shoes together as Galen returns his gaze to the stars.

“For Force’s sake,” Orson grunts, bending yet another data stylist until it snaps, “This is an achievement project, not a doctoral dissertation. Can’t I just reconfigure your old public works thesis and turn it in as my own?”

Graduating at fifteen meant temporary freedom from his parents’ authoritarian ways (if he moved out after this last leadership conference, it would be a few months before their transmissions reached him on Ghessi, or so he could fib), but it also meant a backbreaking amount of work when all he’d really been focused on in his Advanced Particle Physics class was the professor’s shapely rear.

“Even academic honesty aside, definitely not,” Galen laughs, the house droid at his elbow tossing another pen Orson’s way. “Half the things I said about community relations in that damned paper were so gleefully disproved by some of your classmates, so I’ve heard.”

“Community relations, my arse,” Orson growls, frustrated at his lack of progress though nowhere near pathetic enough to truly copy work off his old friend, just ineloquent in the way all teenage boys were when trying to pay someone they idolized a genuine compliment without managing to make it awkward.

“Overpopulation’s a real problem that can’t be fixed by manhandling half the Coruscanti off-world, no matter what my _classmates_ claim. Every surrounding moon doesn’t have the infrastructure to support so many people, and if the Empire was going to waste the money transporting building materials, why don’t they just build another kriffing planet within orbit?”

“It would be a challenge, but it might save time and bloodshed in the long run. The Empire may technically have sovereignty over the galaxy, but the Emperor himself would be hard pressed to tell the foragers on Kline Prime to share land leases with the Coruscanti,” Galen grins, as if impressed by the fact that no one else had proposed the idea, much less that Orson had thought of it.

Blushing was unbecoming of a Krennic, especially one slated to join the Imperial military as soon as he graduated, though that didn’t stop Orson’s traitorous blood from rising to his cheeks.

“The schematics will be a nightmare, but I believe this is something I can actually help you with,” Galen says, and Orson nearly feels proud—not smug in the way that makes him want to puff his chest out, as when his father tells him he’s done well, but quietly content with his work and the obstacles he overcame to finally reach a suitable conclusion.

“It’s a bit far off the mark,” Orson mock protests. “I haven’t exactly learned how to build a kriffing planet in school.”

“If we put our heads together, I think we’ll find a way around that. And who knows? Maybe we’ll create something together, one day.”

Orson’s stopped asking himself why (Galen’s company no longer buys durasteel from the military Corps of Engineers) he is so often back at the Krennics’ to help Orson with problems that must seem so insignificant to him while he’s supposed to be off bettering the galaxy and all of that.

He just takes it as the gift it is, says, “I’ll hold you to that, Galen. Our very own planet.”

(Funny how a remarkable act of what was supposed to be charity was the thing that finally managed to catch the Emperor’s attention.)

Galen smiles at him then, and Orson doesn’t know whether it’s a trick of the light or his overactive imagination, but when he scoots just a bit closer, and tilts his face up, he sees Galen’s eyes flick down to his mouth, then back to meet his gaze.

“Someday, perhaps,” he says, and the moment is broken, Orson’s cheeks burning as he gathers up the broken stylists and tries his damndest not to think on missed opportunities and the way Galen’s eyes had lingered on his lips.

Orson tries desperately to hold back a grateful sigh as Galen disembarks from the shabby freighter, one he no doubt stumbled upon at the last minute, to have arrived half an hour after the graduation ceremony had already completed. Months apart, and he still reacts to the presence of his older friend as if they haven’t seen each other for _years_.

His father is within earshot, so he cannot make his mingled relief and excitement known, though he does accept the one-armed hug that Galen offers him, trying to ignore the alarming amount of pleasure simmering in his gut at the casual affection offered.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits, standing there, proud and regal in his officer’s uniform, though nothing more than a nervous child before the man he’s grown to trust and admire above all others.

“Barely sixteen and already an officer,” Galen says, windswept hair falling over his eyes, and without thinking, Orson reaches out to tuck the overly long strands into some semblance of order. Galen’s large hand grips his wrist with the slightest pressure, and Orson barely holds back a whimper at the contact.

“Orson, aren’t you going to introduce Dr. Erso to your commanding officer?” his father calls, and Orson snatches away his hand as if he’s just been burned.

“Yes, father,” he swallows, heart pounding in his chest, not slowing in the least as he turns towards his parents and commanding officer, and glances back, tentative, to find Galen watching his every step.

There is something curious in his gaze, something Orson has never seen before, and he shivers at the tiny possibility—of what, he doesn’t know. There’s no name for how he feels, no easy way to reduce things down to adoration or lust or longing. All he knows is that another chapter in their relationship has begun, perhaps a chapter in which Galen can see him as more than a child, and this is enough.

Despite liking neither his father nor his commanding officer, his smile is almost genuine when he feels Galen approach to stand at his side.

They’re fighting, for the first time in Orson’s memory, and it’s over something completely ridiculous.

Galen’s too idealistic, he thinks, after five years in the military and countless Imperial operations gone sour. It was easier to apologize and rebuild than negotiate, Orson had learned, but Galen, who had grown up in a simple farming town on a simple farming planet, was overly concerned that the Empire’s priorities too often led to bloodshed and too rarely led to peace.

“I didn’t come here to fight, Orson,” he says, voice rough, and Orson realizes, now, how much of a tired old man he really is.

Bags under his eyes, hair gone prematurely grey. At thirty-nine years old and at this very moment in time, Galen seemed to be already past his prime.

“Yes, you came with _news_. Well, sorry to say, the Senate has already commissioned survey parties to the Outer Rim, and they’re probably going to demand that your energy farms—and a half-dozen other projects like it—should be shut down by the end of the month.”

“Things are not going well in the Core,” Galen says, deflated now, and Orson allows himself to show being similarly worn, buffeted by the demands of his profession and entirely frightened to admit that he still has no clue what he is doing.

“Things are not going well anywhere.”

“The Empire does not have its citizen’s best interests at heart, it’s time you saw—,” Galen starts, and Orson cannot help himself. He doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want any more screaming at each other across his desk or Galen’s, whenever he uses up his monthly leave to squirrel himself away to whatever forsaken outer world Galen’s currently pitched his tent on.

Everything happens fast, but not fast enough that Galen cannot stop him as he fists his hands in the other man’s shirt and pulls them together.

Galen doesn’t stop himself from snaking his arms around Orson’s waist, doesn’t stop Orson from tangling greedy fingers in his hair, their mouths moving together like they’ve been at this their whole lives, Orson letting out an embarrassing noise that might be half a giggle as Galen nips at his lower lip.

“Orson, I shouldn’t—,” he says, and Orson thinks, _that’s our problem, we always talk too much_. Shuts Galen up once more as he surges forward again.

Somehow, he ends up on his knees, Galen’s hands on him, tugging his slicked-back hair out of shape as he takes Galen in.

Other men have made disparaging comments about how good he was with his mouth, and raunchily speculated about exactly why that was, but not Galen. Head tipped back as if he cannot bear to look at someone he has known since they were a boy kneeling for him, he grunts under his breath, pants at the wet, nasty sucking sound Orson’s lips make around his cock.

“Orson,” he chokes out, spilling into Orson’s mouth an endless number of minutes later. Making a show of pulling back and letting Galen’s come pool on his tongue, Orson doesn’t hesitate to swallow.

Cursing under his breath, Galen looks as if he’s about to say something, but instead grabs Orson under the arms and successfully manhandles him onto his large, (formerly) useless desk.

Orson sleeps better than he has in years that night, with Galen snoring quietly beside him.

It’s not quite polite—Alright, it’s _snooping_ , really, but Orson pokes around Galen’s datapad the next morning while the other man’s in the fresher, hoping to find at least one salvageable project idea that he can pitch to his superiors. The Empire didn’t technically have ownership over the private companies that funded Galen’s research and the research of dozens of other poor bastards who were about to have their plugs pulled, but Zerpen Industries and all the rest were contained within the Imperial domain, and the Empire was thusly tasked with deciding their fates.

Orson had wanted to be genuinely helpful, offer his hand to a friend in need, but when he stumbles across a picture of _her_ , across months of scientific correspondence that descended into what he can only call flirtation, he more seriously (and not without a hint of distress) considers the tone that Galen had approached him with the previous day, when he’d talked of _news_.

Entire world narrowed once again, this time to blurry words on a datapad screen, Orson shuts off the device and returns to the stove, where their breakfast is currently set to burning.

“What’s wrong, Orson?” Galen asks, emerging into the kitchen and wrinkling his nose at the smell of charred food. “Distracted?”

His tone is playful, and he kisses Orson’s naked shoulder as he asks it, but Orson cannot help but feel as if something in him has shifted.

_It was nothing more than flirtation_ , he tries to tell himself, though there were thousands of other correspondence files he has not opened yet. It could be so much more than that.

“ _You’re_ the one distracting me,” he says, trying to keep his voice light, all the while wondering whether this was how supernovas felt, burning from the inside out until there was nothing left but dust.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up @penseeart on Twitter for probably sporadic crying about Galennic.


End file.
